Tag Archives: regret

This Day, the Trembling Rabbit

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This day has never been.  And wicked men wake with fear.  Yesterday is now a testimony both for and against all men who lived it.  It is written in stone; unmovable and sure.

As men slept. their testimony of yesterday was rolled up as a scroll.  It was set in a place unreachable by the desire and hands of men.  It was set among the scrolls of all their yesterdays.  And the living God, himself alone. knows the place.

Men may remember small elements of yesterday.  But they are powerless to affect the testimony, either for good or for bad.  What remains in the hand of men is either regret or joy.

Left alone, regret is quickly covered up.  Perhaps a man drinks himself to oblivion to forget.  Perhaps he dresses his mind with the things he has learned to enjoy.  He says,  “I will cover my regret.  It is too much for me to bear.”

But regret is like a hungry wolf who walks beside you in the woods.  You hear the leaves rustle, just beyond your ability to see through the brush.  The snap of a tiny twig.  The brush of a branch against heavy fir.  The sound of heavy breathing as desire looks your way.  And if you could hear it, your ears would hear a drop of salivation strike the ground beneath his gaping mouth.  So it is with your regret which you hurry to mask as you wake from sleep.

If this is the case of yesterday, what will be today.  You will sleep tonight.  Will the morning see you scramble to cover today’s crop of regret?  Will you spend tomorrow trembling as you walk its path?

WHY?  Why do you live this way?  Why do you allow all your days to hunt you in the darkness?  Is it that you don’t know how to be released?  Is it that you have so well learned wickedness that you think it is normal?  Have you even come to the point where you attribute your own wicked ways to the living God and His holy son?  Do you say with confidence, “There is no way out!”

By this testimony you have no joy!  It is ripped away from the reach of your hand.  And you have ripped it away of your own volition.

How pathetic that men cover their regret with such trivial joy.  How sad that men should even know the word eternity.  How horrible the men should speak the word “joy”.

Black and dark are your days.  Hunted like some terror filled rabbit, you spend your day in useless trivia.  Ignoring the wolf does not quench his hunger for your blood.

Would you be free of this hideous cycle of hopeless behavior?  Or have you come to love the thrill of death?  Do you take joy in your useless life?

Have you heard of the gospel of Christ Jesus, the Holy Son of the living God?  I tell you a truth.  He can release you from your days as a victim of regret.  But the choice remains yours.

You may read the Bible.  You may listen to sermons.  You may witness people who live free of regret.  You may ask them and receive their answer.  But if you would join them you must do the things of God.

It is not enough to hear.  A blade of grass may shiver in its place from the sound waves of truth that shake its form.  Never the less, it is cut down by the gardener.  So it is with those who hear and do not do.

What is the urgency in your heart to be free of this cycle of death?  Go!  Go visit the holy and living words that can transform your very soul.  Force your blind eyes to read.  Then ask the living God for release.  And continue for the rest of your days doing these things.  This is the life that will bring you freedom.

Do you think he does not love you?  Is not this thought a product of your own wicked and unloving heart?  If God did not love you, would he have sent His Son to be murdered in your place?  Why would the Holy living God do such a foolish and wicked thing?

Release is!  The transformation from pathetic  rabbit to a godly joyous man is real!  Do not let your eyes look at others.  Many will testify that they have looked and found nothing.  How then can this man write these words?  Pay no attention to them.  They lie from the wickedness that is stored up in their own heart.

Regret comes to you because there are words describing joy.  People are clean and are free and you have seen them.  What will you give to join them?

Necessities

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The call to arms in my soul this morning was this: “Minimize regret”.

Take care of the things, in Christ, that are given you!  At the time of our appearance before his throne, what is lacking will be violently blatant.

If we fulfill the expectation of Christ today, then becomes fulfilled all the other things.  The dishes get done.  The bed is made.  Our work becomes a joy instead of labor.  Our joys become far more complete.  Our hope becomes more radiant.

Already there are many things that were not done.  If we look back, with intensity, the mountain of regret will consume us.  If that is so now what of our moment of appearance? 

There is no need to continue in that habit!

Minimize regret!

The Impending Wreck

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One by one he connected the couplings.  Moving forward then backing up.  By the length of his day, 200 loaded cars stretched out behind.  To rest and prepare, he bid his eyes sleep.

Just before dawn the engine roared again.  This time not for idle speed.   Black smoke billowed toward 70 miles an hour.  His mind focused on what must be done.

It is too expensive to waste time fretting; what loss may come along the way.  Evening, and he will reach his destination.  He sets his mind like steel.

Doing all he can, the wheels pounding, whining, whirling.  A blast of noise pierces the air:  “I’m coming through and you can’t stop me!  Let all who bleed beware!”

Heed is taken normally.  But this time life’s awry.  There’s someone stuck upon the tracks.  This someone’s about to die.

What happens next is not worthy of words.  The judgement has come for one.  And in his wake great tears will flow.  What justice can be done, with words written here?

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O’ man, you are like that train.  You couple your days together with sin.  All day long you do what you think is best.  You have believed the lie that every man does as is right for himself.  Come morning you push the throttle full, mindless of what comes next.

“There is danger.  Yes.  But I am here, and I will do the best I can.  Competition demands my excellence.  And I will give it to them in spades!”

You do not let God guide you.  You do not submit to His Holy way.  Therefore you speed, with all intensity, toward the gates of hell.

Who will stop you now.  And how long does it take to stop the train?  Would it not be wise to stop as soon as you can?  Would it not be wise to slow down and consider?

“I do not have time for your nonsense!  I have babes to feed and clothe!  Away with you!  You distract me from my goal.”

What do you think the engineer would give to allow his prey to live?  What precious thing might he own that will dry up the wells of tears?  What repair can he make to put salve upon regret; that his ruptured heart may heal?  All the while you believe it will not come to you.

Regret yet to come

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When we stand before the Lord Jesus most men will feel regret.  There was something they could have done but did not.  Or there are things they should not have done but did.

I think about my own life and I can pinpoint a few of both.  I suspect every Christian can also find a few.  Not a one of us who reads this is yet perfected.

Now here’s the obvious question, but I’ll ask just the same.  If we know there will be regret, why aren’t we doing something about it now?

Isn’t that a curious quandary?

An Inconvient Truth

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An Inconvient Truth

An Inconvient Truth (Photo credit: yuan2003)

Allow me to speak as one who has been accepted by Jesus.  I am a Christian who has been a horrible sinner.  Drinking, drugs, profanity, blasphemy, immorality, and every other kind of sin were the banner of my life.  I don’t say this to brag at the amount of change in my life.  What I mean is that I don’t say that as a badge of some sort.  It is not to my honor that I lived like that for over 30 years.  And it is of no credit to me that it took nearly 50 years of living to come to terms with the Lord Jesus.  I speak of these things to show you that I know what it is to live in wickedness.  Now I am going to  speak as the man who God has caused to inhabit this bag of blood.  And it is to the wicked I will render these words.  You who have also came from that kind of life and now find yourselves blessed by the presence of God will know what I am about to say is true.

What will you do, sinner and foolish men, you who now walk as if there is no accounting?  What will you do when you are older and find that those you have trashed along the way begin to die?  What will you say?  There is an accounting here in the flesh.  It will fall on you with great noise in your soul as you watch opportunity to make things right evaporate before your very eyes.  You who divorced the mother of your children, what will you do when she dies before you do?  What will you feel as you realize that your hope of making things right between you is absolutely and forever gone?

You who have abandoned the children you have fathered, what will you do when one of them dies before you do?  What will you cry that will make it right between you?  There is an accounting to be had even before the judgment of God.  I can testify to you that you will weep like a little child.  Ache in your heart will overwhelm you.  And you will be left with nothing to say, no where to go, nothing to do that will be useful.

This post is a warning that sin has consequences.  If you are wise you will listen to what I have said.  I do not speak as one who supposes these things.  I have tasted them and warn you as one of you who has become full of hope in Jesus.  Yet that plague of regret enters my life uninvited.  I do not weep as you will weep if you continue on your path of wickedness and rebellion before God.  But weep I do, none-the-less.

I urge you to do all you can to make things right now.  I tell you a truth.  A moment is coming toward you with earnest speed in which you will loathe who you are.  Now is the time to rise up and find courage.  Or you can simply wait long enough.  And you will surely see that what I say here is true.

 

By His Grace.

Conquering Sin.

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The morgue in a abandoned hospital in Deventer...

Image via Wikipedia

“I can’t take it anymore!  I don’t care if I ever see your face again.”  These words were spoken by a husband to his wife, one gentle Spring evening.  He walked out the door vowing to himself to never speak to her again.  Three days later, he spoke to her.  But she didn’t answer.  The last conversation he had with her was as she lay on a slab in the coroner’s prep room.  He had to go identify what remained of her after a violent car accident.  His vow broken, along with his heart, was a vow that should never have been made.

Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, friends, and enemies make vows of silence toward others every day.  And it is a rare thing when those vows can’t be broken.  But these situations are avoidable.   I could go into great detail about what to do to avoid using words you will surely regret.  But how useless would this post be?  Who would read a 10,000 word post?  Instead, I will go our relationship with God to make the point necessary.

The ultimate relationship anyone can have is that of himself and the Lord who made him.  How often this relationship is broken by the human alone.  We decide we will chase after a sinful path we knew well would not end in the pleasure of our God.  But we did it anyway.  And isn’t this what causes all human discord?  We want something the other doesn’t.  So we willingly break the bond of love and trust between us.

We can avoid every possible break in our relationship with God if we love Him more than those things which tear us apart.  It sounds simple when I type it here.  But in practise we find ourselves pulled into sin by a lack of love for His ways.  “. . . Do you love Me more than these?”

When was the last time you found yourself loving God more than the pleasures of sin?  Perhaps you’re stuck in a cycle of sin, confession, and restoration.  Retrospect tells us plainly how we define the word sin.  Hind sight is very clear when we find the relationship between God and ourselves broken.  We all have a weakness which we allow to trip us up and rip us from the loving and powerful prayer life.  This can be avoided if we train ourselves to love God.

We can’t conquer the sinful nature without a distinct and vibrant love for God.  What Jesus has done is to open the door for us into this relationship.  But He leaves it up to us to decide that this relationship with His Father is worth forsaking everything sinful.  My only hope is that those who read this will consider their love for God in a very deep manner.  There is a place where most will end up like that husband.  They will speak to God with a deep and overwhelming grief.  But it will be too late.

By His Grace.